


Heavy Metal, But Classical

by Tiny_Flame_Goddess



Category: Ava's Demon
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Human, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2018-12-08 17:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11651721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiny_Flame_Goddess/pseuds/Tiny_Flame_Goddess
Summary: As Ava does what she can to survive high school, a school project throws her into new waters.  But at least she's not swimming alone.





	1. Chapter 1

As soon as she walked in, she felt the tension.  For Ava Ire, being late to class was not something that happened all the time.  However, to say it was necessarily a rare occurrence would be a blatant lie.  And somehow, without fail throughout the entire school year so far, it was always English.  

She had stormed into the room, fifteen minutes into the period.  She nearly ran into another student’s desk as she blurted a far too zealous, “SORRY!” while trying to catch her breath.  Somehow, as the gruelling seconds of her peers’ and teacher’s watchful eyes cutting into her expectantly ticked on by, Ava cleared her throat; she eyed her teacher, opening her mouth to maybe speak.  She ended up trudging along to her seat, not making any excuses for herself.

She took a bit of comfort in the idea that she didn’t seem to have missed much; the bell work was less than exciting if she was being generous, and most of her classmates were decidedly grouped as working on homework or getting ahead--or catching up--on their reading.  Ava decided maybe not having much of a life wasn’t all that bad in some instances; she had already finished the book, and her annotations weren’t all that bad either!  The test would probably be a breeze if it was fair.  For everyone else’s griping about _The Great Gatsby_ , the quarter had been a bit of a blessing in disguise for her.

Then she looked up at the board.

Blessing: Over.  

_Group Project - Create a presentation on the symbolism used by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Work with a partner (no more than a group of three).  Due Monday._

Ava’s stomach dropped, and she shrunk in her seat.  As the teacher got up to explain the assignment further, she busied herself with frantically looking around the room.  She didn’t have to ask; by then she knew everyone else probably had a partner, or really had their hopes up for essentially working alone.  Maybe, if she was lucky, some unfortunate person would get saddled with her, insist on doing all the work, they could get this over with, and never speak to each other again.  That was the hope, at least.

She meekly sat, glancing around the room as she clicked a pen under her desk.  The rest of the class started to move around her as she waited; maybe she’d just get shoved into a group of three or something.  Maybe they’d take pity on her and she wouldn’t have to do jack squat other than say a few words about things very few of her classmates actually cared about.

There was the sound of scraping against the floor, and Ava quickly looked to her side.  She hadn’t… _exactly_ expected to see a guy pushing his desk closer to hers.  He looked confident enough in his decision to have her as his partner for this, and as he settled at her side, the amount of pity she took on him was suffocating.  He looked tired enough as it was.  At least the darkness of his eyes and the bags under them went well together.

He seemed familiar, at least.  Ava couldn’t give his name for the life of her, but it wasn’t like she had never noticed him before.  He was the kind of guy that was somewhat hard to miss unless he was trying to go unseen.  And seeing as everyone else got up out of their seats like a normal people while he dragged his desk gratingly along the floor to get to his apparent partner, he didn’t seem to care about being under the radar.

Abruptly, Ava smacked her pen down on the desk to stop herself from clicking it.

“G-Got a partner?” he asked her after a moment, and she could have kicked him for the hint of condescension lacing his tone.  Under other circumstances--and with less desperation--she imagined she could have snarked back.

She simply shook her head, only giving him a small dose of his own medicine back, “You?”

“W-Want to wo-work on this to-to-together?”

She relaxed a bit.  At the very least, she guessed he didn’t _seem_ overly annoyed with getting stuck with her.  She glanced once more around the room; no one else looked exactly eager to pair up with him, either.  Fate was an asshole.  Ava let out a breath, tapping her feet a bit, “Yeah!  Sure, yes.”  All the boy did was nod before leaning back in his seat, taking in the rest of the instructions as the teacher rattled everything off.

Ava let her mind wander in the meantime, the rest of the rubric floating around and settling somewhere in the back of her head.  There were so many ways all of this could go, and she did her best to imagine the most ideal of possible outcomes.  A decent grade would be nice.  Maybe the teacher would show mercy; with two kids--one with almost no hope of not losing all of her shit at once up there, and the other with a stutter of all things--having to present together, surely some lee-way would be in order, right?  She could hope.  Hope was good.  It was all she had.

That, and, a pen to continue clicking at some point without her conscious knowledge.

Her partner glanced down at her as the teacher droned on and on.  She caught his eye; he didn’t look too annoyed, but she doubted he was amused.  She quickly stopped, chewing on her lip instead as she looked away.  It wasn’t long before she felt a soft nudge at her arm.  She looked back.  

She wasn’t certain exactly what the look was that her classmate was giving her, but it looked just enough like a smile for her to relax.  “K-Keep going,” he said, gesturing at her pen.  She blinked in surprise but quickly found one of his own hands fiddling with something of his own on a chain around his neck.  Ava didn’t ask, instead just sighing, and continuing with her clicking.  “Sorry.”

Eventually, the drone of their teacher melted away into the rest of the class talking around them.  “S-So.  How are we going to d-d-do this?” her partner asked, shifting in his seat to face her.

She huffed, “I have.  No idea.  We could… use a power point?”  Ava shrugged a little, “I read the stuff.   So…”

The boy nodded, gears almost visibly turning in his head behind his eyes, and the dark circles beneath them, _why was she staring at his eyes._ “W-We could start today?” he offered, brows knit.

Ava forced a nod.  “That’s probably a good idea.”

“Y-Yeah.  W-We could probably use s-s-some of the notes--” he continued on as Ava dug out a notebook, hastily scribbling “book report stuff” across the top of the page, “You an-an-annotated.  Right?”

“Oh!” Ava answered, stooping again to dig around in her backpack, “Yeah.  Mostly.”  They probably weren’t up to the teacher’s standards, but then again what was?  Her book wasn’t _empty_ , and even if they were short and sweet, at least they were legible and coherent.

“S-So did I, so,” the boy shrugged, “th-that’s good!”

Ava smiled a bit, “Sweet.”

He scratched the back of his neck a bit, turning more towards her, “A-Are you doing an-an-anything after school?”

Ava faltered a bit, stalling a bit before answering, “No.  Not today.”  She could at least pretend she had a life.  Why she felt the need to impress him, she didn’t know for the life of her, but…

“C-Cool.  I can give you a ride to m-my--my--my place.”  Ava’s eyes widened.  “A-A-And a r-ride home, too, if you need.”  

 _Oh._ Ava stammered a bit, “Uh--Are you sure?  I mean, I could probably get a ride.  Maybe.”

“I-It’s fine.” he answered her quickly.

And there was that horrendous limbo of not wanting to be an inconvenience.  Ava planted her chin atop her hands with her elbows propped on the desk in defeat.  Wrenching her eyes shut tight for a second, she hoped and prayed to whatever god was out there that her face didn’t look at warm as it felt.  Almost wincing, she nodded, “Alright.”

Saved by the bell.

Ava Ire had possibly never shoved her belongings back in her bag faster than in that moment, hopping up out of her seat.  “I’ll… see you later?”

He nodded up at her, “Y-Yeah, um… Yes.”

“Alright!” she nodded back, tucking some hair back behind her ear.

She could have killed him for the once-over he gave her before standing up; as it turned out, he was a good head or so taller than she was, hands stuffed in the pockets of his grey jeans.  Or were they some kind of weird blue?   _Why was she staring at his jeans?!_

He lingered there with her for a second longer before grabbing up anything that had been on his desk and heading back to his own bag.  He headed out briskly a second later, leaving Ava to silently reel in place.

-

Lunch time.  Fun.

At a table close enough to the nearest exit, Ava sat undisturbed with her sandwich, a bag of grapes, applesauce, and a juice box.  In a way, it was kind of nice to sit alone; she had every opportunity to de-stress, take as much time as she needed to eat, chill for a while, let her mind really run off on some pleasant adventure through a life she’d never have, before heading off to her last hour of the day.  Despite all of that, she imagined that--maybe--she would appreciate this time more if every other class period wasn’t the same; she was surrounded by people, and none of them really paid her much mind.  

But today, it seemed, some fate had decided that nothing was going to be the same as normal.  Ava nearly jumped out of her skin as someone appeared behind her, plopping into the seat next to her, causing the chair to grate on the tile floor.  She stifled a bit of a yelp as she looked up to see the boy from her English class looking almost as startled as she did.  

“Hi!”  She called a bit too loudly, ultimately failing any attempt to seem nonchalant.  “Um-- hi.”

“H-H-Hi,” he stammered in reply as Ava calmed herself down, “Sh-Should I… go?”

“No!” Ava blurted out in a rush.  She quieted down a bit as she continued, “You’re okay.  Um,” she paused, looking around quickly, “Do you have friends you have to sit with, though?”  

He only shook his head.

“Oh.  Okay.”  She looked back down at the table, pushing her juice box around a bit anxiously.

Her classmate’s eyes flicked from the juice box and back to her in a choppy loop for a moment as he asked, “D-Do you u-u-usually sit all by yourself?”

“Sometimes.”   _Yes_.

He seemed to catch on quick enough.  But at least he seemed to be getting comfortable at her side.  “Why were you l-l-late to--today?” he asked with a short nod.

Ava bit her lip, stabbing the tiny straw into her juice box.  When did this become an interrogation?  They had spoken once before and even that was a mess--if she was being generous.  She weighed her options; she could bite her tongue, or sit alone.  And not for the first time ever, the former seemed much more appealing.  “I… had to do something.”

 _Genius.  Yes.  Perfect.  He suspects nothing, and you don’t seem like a weirdo_ at all.

Ava glanced up at him.  He was just sitting there, _staring_ at her expectantly.  Thick, dark brows were cocked in suspicion, silently pressing her to perhaps elaborate.  She huffed, narrowing her eyes at him, her own brows beginning to knit.  “I had to clean some stuff up.  Broke a pencil sharpener a little bit.”

“Alright,” he responded finally, blinking slowly.  Ava realized she hadn’t eaten any of her lunch yet, and went about unwrapping her sandwich quickly.  All the while, her partner sat by quietly; she just barely caught him eyeing her sandwich before quickly looking away.

Chewing on her cheek a moment, Ava questioned, “Do you have lunch?”

“I eat in math.”

She blinked a bit at how quickly his answer came.  Regardless, she recovered, shrugging it off and getting on with eating her own lunch,  “Oh.  Okay.”

As Ava nibbled away at her PB&J, she watched out of the corner of her eye as her partner pulled out a little black sketchbook and a pencil, beginning to doodle in it.  He quickly became engrossed in his work, the pencil scratching away at the page.  Ava kept glancing over, letting her curiosity get the better of her, and trying to see what he was drawing.  

She tried not to take too much offence when he clearly noticed her trying to sneak a peak, and covered the page with his arm.  She had managed to catch a quick glimpse of a round-ish face, with hair, shaded and dark, falling with a gentle flow around it, parted somewhere towards the center.  She couldn’t be sure.  And she definitely wasn’t.  But… whatever, or whoever, he was drawing--the way the features lined up, how the face was framed--looked a little bit like her.

She sat quietlyt for a moment before piping up, “Whatcha drawin’?”

“J-Just a l-l-little s-s-sketch.” he answered, not glancing up from the page for long.

“Of what?”

He hesitated.  “P… P-Practicing features.” he finally shrugged.

She cocked a brow.  “Lemme see!”

He stopped drawing, instead holding the book just a bit closer to his chest.  He set his pencil down, closing the book up and keeping a tight hold on it.  “M-Maybe later.”

“When you’re finished?” Ava pressed, still glancing at the little book.

After a moment of thought, he nodded in reluctant agreement, “S-Sure.”

“Deal.”  She tore back into her sandwich.

Eventually, to her slight dismay, the book was returned to it’s rightful place in the boy’s bag.

He shifted towards her, propping his elbow up on the table, “S-So.  Y-You sh-sh-should probably know my house is k-kinda…”  He stopped to sigh as she just looked at him.  “Th-There might be… a lot of people.  N-N-Not like, a _lot_ , a-a lot, but--”

“Ah,” Ava stopped him short, “Family?”

He seemed to relax a bit more, and he nodded, “Y-Yeah.  Three li--little sisters.  A-A-And then there's my brother,”  He paused, looking up as if thinking.  Eventually he continued with a small, dismissive flick of his hand, “S-Some other people, b-but they'll pr-probably do their own thing.”

Ava took a moment to compare his quick spiel to the life she was used to at her own home; she raised a brow.  “Jeez!  That is kinda a lot…”

“Yeah,” he shrugged, “I-It takes some getting used to.”

“I didn’t know you had a bunch of siblings.”

“Two o-of my sisters are s-s-still in middle school,”  Her english partner shifted a bit, glancing at the clock.  “My brother's b-been graduated.”

Ava made a small sound of fondness at the news; she was rewarded with the awkward beginnings of a smile.  For a brief minute, it all felt too surreal.  It was strange to not sit alone--there was a small part of her that wondered if she preferred the solitude or just craved the familiarity of loneliness.  She set her sandwich down with finality, pushing it all away.  “That sounds really cool.  I wish I had siblings sometimes.  It seems kind of fun.”

He didn’t answer directly.  “A-Any time you n-need to be h-h-ho-home by?” he asked instead.

Ava shrugged, “Whenever.  Probably just, like… before dark, you know?”

He nodded.  “G-Got it.”

“Do you… have a car?”

There was a slight pause.  “Y-Yeah…?”

“Oh.”   _No, duh, stupid, practically everyone else in this hell hole has a car._  “Cool!”

“S-So, uh,” he stammered, “Just m-meet me by the b-bleachers or s-so-some--something.”

Upon their agreement, Ava’s attention was pulled to the bell.  She glowered at the clock on the wall for a second before eventually gathering up her things, shoving them back where they belonged.  “Welp!” she huffed, slinging her bag over her shoulder, “I gotta book it to math.”

Her partner followed suit, once again catching her off guard with his height.  “Have f-ff… fun.” he remarked, as collected as possible.

An awkward moment of silence as the world shuffled to chaotic life around them ensued; there was untimely blinking, shuffling, gripping straps of their bags until--finally--the boy broke the trance, leaving Ava behind with one more almost pained ghost of a grin.


	2. Chapter 2

Ava found her English partner waiting for her by the bleachers just as he had promised.  His hand etched fluently over a page in a book he had propped in his lap while a cigarette hung loosely from his lips.   Ava recognized it to be the sketchbook she had caught him drawing in during lunch. A part of her marvelled and wondered, hoping she could catch another glimpse at whoever it was he had been drawing.  She shut that part of her down with a roll of her shoulders, stepping closer to the bleachers.

“Hi.” she greeted, stopping a couple feet away from him.

He closed the book up quickly, stuffing it back into his bag before she could see any more of his work.  “R-Ready to go?”

She rocked on her heels as she nodded in affirmation.  He stood, bending awkwardly to put his cigarette out on the sole of his shoe before flicking it away into a forgotten solitude under the bleachers with other trash the campus likely should not have had on it.  They headed away from the field together, Ava doing her best to keep up with his naturally longer strides. “Hey,” she started, glancing back at the bleachers, “aren’t you worried about getting caught smoking?”

The boy shrugged, stuffing his hands into his pockets, “Not particularly, no.”

“Why not?”

Another shrug.  “I-I’ll be out of this h-h-hell hole soon a-a-anyways.”

She craned her neck to look at him, “You’re a senior, right?”  He nodded. Ava chewed her lip for a moment before looking back down at where she was going, “Huh.  I mean, I guess you really don’t have to be that worried.”

“I-I’ve caught f-f-fre--freshmen do-doing worse.”

Ava tried not to gag, doing her best not to think about what else could have been under those bleachers.  She decided very quickly that she was in absolutely no rush to find out. Her partner’s shudder at his own apparent traumas was enough for her.  “Jeez.”

They kept walking, the autumn air of the afternoon brushing around them, daring to approach a comforting crispness to complement the sounds of dead leaves beneath their feet.  Ava took some comfort in the silence; neither really seemed to expect the other to start up any more riveting conversation. A part of her wanted to be offended, but the opportunity to quietly assess her situation was welcomed much more than it was hesitantly accepted.  Eventually, in the crisp quiet, he had led her up to decently polished grey truck.

Ava didn’t know much about cars.  The world of having a license was one foreign to her--concepts of driving, the furthest thing from her thoughts.  She could tell you about her grand escape plan from the school, potential accomplices, which utility closets led to loose ceiling panels; it was honestly almost a blessing how much the school was falling apart.  But cars? Trucks? _Zilch._

Candidly, her reaction reflected as much--and probably more.  “This is a…. Nice… Car.” _What is_ wrong _with you?!_ She thanked whatever god there was he didn’t ask much more of her than that, only pulling the passenger door open for her.  She bit at her chapped lips as she stepped forward, tossing her bag in front of the seat before hopping in, totally not beet-red in the _slightest!_  She buckled up as the door shut, and her classmate was soon at the left of her, settling into the driver’s seat.

“I w-was a l-li-little bit worried you'd have a ha-har-hard time getting in.” he said, the quick, choppy breaths he took as he spoke almost resembling laughter.

Ava squinted at him, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He buckled in, “I mean… My t-tw-twe-twelve-year-old si-sisters are t-ta-taller.”

Well, there was no hiding the red in her face now.  “No way!” she glowered at him, gripping the velcro strap across her lap with some kind of fiery vengeance.

“I--I'm n-not saying it's a b-ba-bad thing!”

“I can get in trucks just fine.” she snapped at him, practically baring teeth.

His laughter died with his teasing and the engine sputtering to life, “A-Alright, alright.  Simmer down.”

She settled with the hum of the truck and the sound of tires crunching against the gravel of the campus parking lot; exhaling slowly--a part of her almost hoped she could blow smoke out of her nose--Ava sunk back into the passenger seat.  She let her head lull to the side, gaze lazily fixed on the scenery as it began to move around her.

Fortunately for everyone involved, they cleared the parking lot without causing any scenes.  She sat up straighter when the small, suburban neighbourhood she found herself calling home sunk into the distance behind them, a long stretch of road taking its place.

“Where do you live, anyways?” Ava asked.

The boy shrugged, “K-Kind of o-o-out of the way.”

“How far?”

“H-Half hour… forty-five m-m-minute drive?”

“Yeesh.”

He raised his eyebrows a bit in the beginnings of an agreement, “I-It's not that b-ba-bad.”

“I mean,” she sighed, looking back out the windows, eyes flicking over the blurred rows of pine trees, “I live pretty close to the school.  So I don’t know.”

“Fair e-enough.”

The drive slipped back into a gentle quiet, save for the constant, gravelly purr of the truck’s engine.  Towering buildings in cities much closer than they appeared disappeared into the autumn mist that hung low in the sky, painting the world over in muted hues of what Ava could only imagine would otherwise be a colourful landscape of light and life.  She pictured barren fields they passed practically exploding with flowers--a blooming meadow of poppies would do the world some good.

When the paved roads turned to dirt, Ava looked ahead again.  Her jaw dropped at the sight of dense woods encompassing a mansion, of all things.  She couldn’t help but whip her head to the side, looking at her partner like he owed some kind of explanation for this.  He didn’t seem all that interested in answering questions; his dark eyes were trained on the horizon--and, consequently, the mansion.

His house.  

“Is this… your place?” Ava croaked, gaze darting frantically from the road to the driver.

“Y-Y-Yeah.”

Her eyes widened.  It didn’t matter how many times she cleared her throat.  All that came out was a meek mumble, “Holy crap.”

As the sound of tires grinding over dirt faded gently into silence, Ava hopped out of the truck, soles of her shoes hitting the ground with a grounding crunch beneath her.  The road stretched back a ways behind the truck, disappearing into a horizon of dark, dense forests; the property was completely fenced in by pine trees, with no telling how far back those spanned.

Yeah, her partner was maybe a little odd.  But Ava had never expected him to be completely off the grid.

Or rich, for that matter!

The car door shutting pulled Ava’s attention from everything around her, and she turned to find her partner shuffling to stand at her side, hands stuffed in his pockets.  She huffed up at him indignantly as he settled, “I didn’t know you lived in a freaking _castle._ ”

Ava’s anger faltered as he actually started to laugh, shaking his head, “I d-don’t.  I live in a ma--mansion. Now, c-come on.” He left her after that, striding down the rest of the dirt road towards the manor.  Ava stood for a while longer, all but letting the ambience sink into her pores and settle for eternity, before hurrying along, jogging to catch up.  The more she got to look at the place, the more the discomfort of feeling wildly out of place settled in her gut. The building was old-fashioned enough until the two came to a gate with a keypad; she could hardly imagine the security system.  Ava could only hope as she stood at her partner’s side that she, a mere outsider to this fortress of expensive solitude, would not be spotted and vaporized on sight. She wasn’t exactly in the mood to be splattered today.

Fortunately, the boy hit a sequence of keys with his thumb--a flawless pattern perfected by habit--and the gate opened up without incident, and Ava was led up to the doors of the manor, and then inside.

She felt no more than two inches tall with the ornate walls looming around her.  Sure, it had looked big on the outside from her spot in the truck. But Ava had never expected an actual house she would ever step foot in would be so extravagant.  It was like a dream!

Being suddenly tugged along by the handle of her backpack certainly wasn’t the gentlest awakening, but at the end of the day being forced to move was probably a lot better than her just standing there and gawking like an idiot--for _everyone_ involved.

“Your family’s fricking _rich._ ” Ava--now apparently Captain Obvious--muttered as she was dragged along towards a spiralled flight of stairs.

“I g-gu-guess you could s-say that.” Ava’s partner had the gall to say.  He looked around quickly, eyes darting in all directions. “C-Come on.” he finally said, skipping steps as he hurried up the stairs.

She struggled to keep up with him, glancing behind her as they clumped up the stairs, “Why are we running?”

“R-Reasons.” He stopped a short way down a hallway and opened up a door.  He waited politely for her to catch up and run in before he followed her in and shut the door behind them.  

Ava didn’t know what to expect anymore.  She looked around, taking in her new surroundings and quickly registering the new environment as a bedroom, though It was definitely a lot different from the one she had at home.  Everything looked some level of ornate and expensive, from the bed down to the door handle. But the immaculate, almost Victorian skeleton was fleshed out with… well, _more_ of what she had expected to be in a boy’s room.  Posters tacked haphazardly to the walls of punk rock bands, a desk cluttered by papers and electronics--a tangled mess of various chargers and other chords sat in a pile near an outlet--and an office chair with a small pile of folded clothes.  It was almost kind of comforting to know he seemed to be fine with having her over without his room being cleaned. Then again, maybe a cleaning lady just hadn’t come yet. Or something.

A pile of sketchbooks on the floor caught her eye and washed away any bitterness that had started to bubble up inside her.  Ava took another look up at the posters along the walls and smiled, “You like music, huh?”

He dropped his bag by his bed and sat down on it, nodding, “Y-Yeah.  You?”

“Yeah.  I mean,” she gestured lazily with an arm, “not really this kinda stuff, but…”

“Wh-What kind of m-mu-music d-do you like?”

Ava blinked.  “Oh, um--kinda… classical stuff?  I don’t know.”

He nodded thoughtfully before he ducked down and pulled a laptop out of his bag.  He flipped it open, setting it on his lap. “R-Ready to do… s-s-some--something for this pr-project?”

Ava let her bag drop as her partner shifted over on the bed, clearing a spot for her.  She shuffled over and hopped up, staring at the screen of the laptop. So far, all they had to work with was a title screen, and a few named--but otherwise empty--slides.

_Great._

Ava got her book out from her bag, flipping through the pages, looking for anything coloured with neon or marked up margins.  It’s not like she didn’t read the book; there had to be _something_ good in there.

“S-S-So,” her partner piped up through her flipping, “w-we need to a-a-analyse at least f-f-five p-pieces of symbolism.”

“Easy peasy.”

He hummed, “S-Something about… Q-Quotes.  A-And then we present o-on--on Monday.”

Ava stopped flipping, anxiously tapping her thumb against a page.  “Present.”

“Uh, yeah?” her partner laughed, “Did you m-miss that part?”

“Uh…” her voice cracked, “a little bit.”

It was quiet for a minute before the boy started typing away.  “F-Fitzgerald r-re-really like colours.”

“Yeah.  Yeah, colour symbolism!”  Ava went back to flipping--anything highlighted with pink was sure to give them the sacred answers they sought.  In the meantime, her partner continued his typing.

Between the tapping, he spoke up, “So.  Question. G-Gatsby and Daisy o-o-or Gatsby and Nick?”

Ava blinked, and her head swivelled up to look at him, “Wait, really?”

“I mean… y-yeah.  Why n-not?”

She bit her cheek, eyes narrowing.  “Gatsby just deserves happiness. Bottom line.  Right?”

That earned her a thoughtful nod.  “I s-see your point,” he mumbled as an afterthought, “Th-They’re both kind of sh-shitty options if you a-ask me.”

“Everyone is messed up in this,” Ava countered, waving the book around, “But I mean, everyone’s just kinda messed up, period.”

“I want T-Tom to die in a b-barn fire.”

Sure, it wasn’t symbolism.  But it was making Ava feel more and more at ease by the minute.  “I want Tom to fall into a meat grinder.”

She looked up and watched her partner nod slowly, pausing his typing.  His brows were knit together in concentration, gears turning in his head.  He started typing again when he stopped nodding, and remarked coolly, “Both.  B-Both is good.”

Ava laughed in agreement, “Both is good.”

He resumed speaking once he stopped typing again; Ava glanced at the screen to see he had added slides for several colours mentioned, already with some brief form of a synopsis.  “Okay, so. I-If you can find quotes, I c-c-can do the a-analysis.”

“On it,” she affirmed with a firm nod, flipping through the book again, scanning for bright pink.

“A-A-And you d-don't have to d-d-do it all t-to-tonight o-or anything.  Just… i-in general.”

“Okay.” she smiled.

“I-I can s-s-send you a document I-I've been working on for a while, i-if you want.  To… y-you know, co-collect my thoughts.”

Ava glanced around awkwardly at the tangled pile of chargers.  “I, uh... don’t… really have a way to check it right now, but I can when I get home!”

“A-Alright.  Ju--Just,” he handed the laptop over, “t-type in your e-mail address, and…”

A blank slide stared up at her, cursor blinking rhythmically.  She felt like it was taunting her. Like somehow, someway, it knew.  It knew she was going to have to type out “bunnygardengirl531” as a way to be reached for this stupid project.

Regret was always a cold, bitter taste.

She sighed slowly and typed it in, quickly handing it back over and occupying herself with finding more quotes.

He didn’t make a comment and simply quietly mumbled something about it being sent.

They sat in silence again, Ava kicking her feet as her partner filled in random slides with information.  Occasionally she would catch him glancing back at the document he had sent her, tapping his fingers against the keyboard, bouncing his leg.  It was enough to prompt her to settle on a damn page instead of flipping around like an indecisive idiot. She nudged him on the arm then pointed at a passage crudely coloured with highlighter.  “Here… Does that work?”

He smiled at her, “Th-That’ll work w-w-wonderfully.  G-Good job.”

“Thanks.” she smiled back, dog-earring the page.  In the midst of slides filling with half-assed analysis (Ava was assured it would all be cleaned up later), she found more quotes and reached over to nudge him again.  She looked up to see his face scrunched up and a deep red. “What’s wrong?” she cautiously asked.

“Um,” he set the computer to the side, running a hand through his hair.  He shifted on the bed, turning towards her. “Wh-What… What’s your name?”

 _Oh yeah, introductions.  That’s a crucial part of basic human interaction._  Ava could have smacked her hand against her face hard enough to draw blood.  But then again, she wasn’t the one who had invited someone over to her house without knowing their name.  She guessed it was appropriate to feel worse for her partner…

 _Partner, good grief._  “Uh--Ava!  What’s yours?”

“O-Odin.” he answered her quickly.

“Cool.”

Back to silence.

-

“O-Okay, we have at least o-one s-se-sentence on each slide,” Odin said after a while, slowly shutting the laptop.

“Great!  I could probably, like… Do those later.  If you want?”

“I-If you’re feeling u-up to it,” he answered, smiling at her.  She smiled back and shut her book, holding it in her lap. Odin set his laptop on the bed, turning to face her, “D-Do you have a ph-ph-phone?”  Almost as soon as Ava had fished her dinosaur of a phone out of her bag--a slide phone because apparently she was deserving of _slightly_ more than a Nokia brick--he plucked it out of her hands and typed in his number.  “J-Just in c-c-case.” he said as he handed it back.

“Um--okay!  Cool. I’ll… text you, so you have my number!”

He pushed himself up off the bed, rolling his shoulders.  He pointed behind him; it was a lazy gesture towards the outside world beyond mansions and school projects.  “I… sh-should probably d-drive you h-home now. So you’re b-ba-ba--back i-in time.”

“Yeah, probably,” she said.  She hopped down and gathered up her stuff, slinging her bag over her shoulder.  She made a small effort to smooth out her skirt before heading out the door Odin was holding open for her again.  The trek back down to the front door was a lot calmer than their sprint up the stairs. “Hey,” she piped up as they reached the bottom of the stairs, “thanks for having me over and stuff.”

Odin looked down at her and nodded, “A-Anytime.”

“ _OOH, ODIN BROUGHT A GIRL OVER!_ ” an unfamiliar, shrill voice suddenly boomed.  Ava swung her head to the side, barely catching a glimpse of two dark-haired girls cackling like maniacs on a couch as Odin dragged her out the door and back to the truck by the strap of her bag.

“Were, uh… those your sisters?” she asked, stumbling as she struggled to keep up with his longer, much quicker strides.

“R-Raven a-a-an-and Crow.”  He opened the door up for her, quickly getting in on the driver’s side.  He didn’t waste time getting back on the road; it was almost enough to make Ava’s head spin.  “Do you kn-know how to get home from th-the school?” he asked, brows knit.

“I live a bit down that road.  You know, the one in front?”

“By the p-pa-park?”

Ava nodded in affirmation before her eyes darted down to the floor of the truck and her tapping feet.  The hum of the engine and the gentle crackling of the tires against the road was too much to bear that time around, so Ava was quick to break the silence between them.  At least she had a good enough excuse to make more conversation. “Your sisters seem nice.”

Odin just hummed.

“...No?”

“S-S-Sorry about… th-that.”

“Um,” Ava glanced out the window, “I mean, it’s okay!”

She glanced back to find Odin practically white-knuckling the wheel, biting his lip.  “I do-don’t… usually ha-ha-ha--... have… people o-over, i-is--is all.”

Ava laughed--awkwardly, and not at all in a way she imagined was helping Odin’s mental stability.  It trailed off, instead fading into a well-meant, “I mean, I guess not. They sure seemed interested that you did.”

“I-I pr-pro-pr--pro--probably should have i-in-introduced you be-beforehand, but…” He crinkled up his nose and shook his head.  He huffed, “I-I’ll talk to them when I g-g-g-get home.”

“Okay, Odin.”

-

For Ava, car rides always seemed so much shorter on the trip home than the trip to wherever it was she was going.  Before she knew it, she was staring blankly out the window at the school campus, and then the park. She sat up straighter, pointing down towards the corner of the road they were on.  She directed Odin from there, until finally he slowed to a stop in front of her house.

“H-Here?”

“Yep.”  It definitely wasn’t a mansion, that was sure.  It was modern, comfortable--standard the-school-and-the-park-are-a-block-away aesthetic.  Ava’s pride and joy of the property was a small box of poppies in the front yard that sat by a window looking into the home.  She cared for it all by herself, and had proved on multiple occasions that she was not afraid to bite anyone who tried to tamper with it.

On her better judgement, she decided she didn’t have to tell Odin about that.  Or anyone else, for that matter. Ever.

In her thought spiral of regret, she failed to notice Odin opening her door up for her and grabbing her bag for her before it was too late.  “Hey, you don’t gotta--”

“I-I got it.”

Ava huffed, hopping out of the truck and shoving the door closed.  Before Odin could beat her to the front steps, she raced to the door and stood firmly in front of it.  “Hey. Um. Thanks for the ride and stuff! And for,” she scooped her bag away, holding it lopsidedly to her chest, “carrying my bag.  And stuff.”

Odin stood there for moment, looming over her with his mouth tugged into an amused smirk.  “Yeah, n-no problem.”

“I’ll… see you tomorrow!”

He gave her a nod and turned on his heel.  A moment later he was back in his truck, and in less time than that he had disappeared down the road.  Ava let out a breath and slipped inside the door.

Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the long wait! School is finally starting to come to a close for me, so aside from finals, there's a lot less for me to worry about. That being said, I'm going to do my best to crank out as many chapters as regularly as I can :) And thank you guys SO MUCH for the support you've given for just the first chapter so far!! <3


	3. Chapter 3

Ava stumbled into English class that next morning, this time before the final bell had rung.  She quickly made her way to her seat and plopped down, huffing as she let her bag drop on the ground by her ankles.  Her eyes swept over the room quickly; no one was staring at her like she had three heads this time, at least. The teacher was chatting up some other students at the front desk, other kids were chatting up their friends--what a world _that_  must be to live in.  In the midst of the quiet, pre-bell chatter around her, Ava turned slightly to the left, expecting to see Odin.  Maybe  _they_ could talk, really rub it in the faces of all the other jerks in class.

His desk was empty.  His bag wasn't there, he wasn't there, and no one really seemed to pay much mind to it.  Ava quickly looked up at the clock at the front of the room. The class was only a couple minutes from starting.  Maybe he was just out in the hall talking to other people and Ava just... hadn't noticed coming in.

Seconds ticked away between Ava's eyes darting between the front of the room, the door, and the empty desk to her left.  When the bell finally rang, she slumped down in her seat with a sigh. The door still hadn't opened, and his desk was still completely empty.  The teacher called roll to rub salt in the open wound and then went on with class.

Ava couldn't stop looking at the empty desk.  Where _was_  he?  Was he just ditching?  Was he sick?  Her mind began to race.  Maybe she had said something or done something yesterday, and now he didn't want anything to do with her at all.  Maybe he got moved into another class because he hated having her as a partner for this dumb project, and now she was going to have to find someone else to put up with her until Monday.

She could see it so clearly--"Miss Ire?" the teacher would pipe up suddenly, drawing the eyes of the universe directly onto her, "Sorry to give you short notice but your English partner is in another class now, so you'll have to find someone new.  Any takers?" she would then address the class. And Ava would want nothing more than to just implode when no one would jump at the opportunity to have her of all people as a partner for a project. Maybe someone would finally raise their hand out of pity just to move the class along--take one for the team.  Or maybe the teacher would just shove her into a group of three like she had figured would happen anyways. She'd hear some minor groaning and complaints, but they'd end up taking her in to appease the teacher. The class would eventually end, she'd eat lunch alone, suffer through the final period, go home, finally break down and cry alone in her room because it's not like her witch of a foster mother would care if no one at school likes her (because how could _anyone_ like  _her_ ), wake up the next day, wash, rinse, repeat.

And then the door clicked open.

The whole class turned their heads towards the noise, Ava included, and silently watched as Odin, the one boy who had previously been marked as "absent", shuffled inside.  He silently handed his pass over to the teacher and sat down in his seat with an exhausted huff. He didn't say a word, just quietly got to work on the assignment the teacher had passed around.

Only when he was finally sat down did Ava notice his fat lip.

It wasn't like she could just lean halfway over the gap between their desks and try to whisper all of her questions.  Ava could definitely handle not being the centre of attention, and she was willing to bet money _he_  didn't want that kind of spotlight either.  So instead of being the most conspicuous person in the entire school, Ava simply sat quietly in her seat and waited for the teacher to be totally engrossed in something other than watching the class like a hawk.  Then she pulled her phone from her bag and got to Odin's number. Being as nonchalant as possible, her thumbs raced over the keypad until she hit "send".

_are you okay?_

She "did her work" in the meantime, nervously filling the margins of her paper with messy doodles of flowers.  Her phone vibrated in her lap and she quickly glanced down.

_I'm fine_

Ava set her pen down, thumbs tapping again.  _what happened??_

_Roughhousing with my sisters_

She glanced over again.  Odin had his phone settled on his thigh even as he bounced his leg quickly.  He was sitting there with his face in his hand, fingers half laced through messy tufts of his dark hair.  His eyes were trained on the worksheet on his desk as he tapped his pen lightly against the page.

And then there was that fat lip.

Ava didn't know too much about how actual siblings fought.  In all technicalities, she  _was_ an only child.  Sure, she had "siblings", but in much less of a "these people are my family" way and a lot more of a "these people share a house and a foster mother with me and none of them really like me much anyways" way.  Roughhousing was never really Ava's thing.

For now, she figured she'd take his word for it.  Two little sisters in middle school seemed like a plausible enough means of getting a black lip.  She stuffed her phone back in her bag and huffed, deciding, for now, that she could at least  _try_  to make some effort on her worksheet beyond drawing all over it.

When the bell finally rang to signal the end of class, Ava gathered up her things and waited in the hall.  To her surprise, when Odin finally stepped out, he didn't just stride right past her. Instead, he stopped at her side and greeted her with a nod, "H-Hey."

"Hi," she greeted back, not bothering to hide the concern in her voice, "Are you sure your face is okay?"

"I-It's n-n-not a big deal."

"Does it hurt?"  Odin just shrugged.  Ava glanced around the hall as she spoke, "Mabe you could go to the nurse and get some ice!"

"I already did," Odin answered quickly, "That's why I was late."

Ava's shoulders slumped a bit.  "Oh..." she replied despondently.

Odin was quick to change the subject, waving the previous discussion off, "I... b-brought something f-for you."

Ava blinked.  "You did?"

"Y-Yeah.  C-Come on." Odin answered, turning and striding off down the hall.  Ava pushed off the wall and followed him as best she could with her significantly smaller legs.  He led her all the way down to the cafeteria where they had sat together the day before. By the time Ava had come to a stop at his side, he was digging around in his bag.  A moment later, he pulled out a book and held it out to her.

She took it from him, looking over the spine and the covers as Odin spoke over the gentle hum of the cafeteria chatter, "I-It's a... a-an older s-sketchbook of m-mi-mine.  I-If you want to ch-check it out, you can h-hold onto it f-for a while, o-or..." He trailed off, shrugging as he sat down at the table.

Ava's face only brightened with every word he said.  "That's really cool!" she exclaimed, "I'd love to look through it."

Odin gave her another ghost of a smile.

Ava set down her things and had a seat at Odin's side, quickly putting the book down in front of her and opening it.  She flipped through the pages carefully, gazing down at every new drawing with awe. Every single worn page was filled with doodles and sketches--anywhere from one that spanned the whole page, or a collage of five or more little things encompassing the space.  Some were shaded, some coloured, some left alone as simple line-art. There were flowers, animals, steaming cups of coffee, eyes, hands, and just about everything esoteric in between.

Ava couldn't help but beam.  She got around to taking out her lunch and looked up at Odin in the meantime, "These are all so good..!"

"Y-You think so?" he replied, sitting up straighter.

"Yeah!  Course I do!  They're great!" she excitedly answered.

Odin sat quietly for a second before he smiled a little more, "Th-Th-Thanks."

Ava smiled back and took a bite of her sandwich, going back to look at more of Odin's artwork.  She was so engrossed in the sketchbook that she didn't even come  _close_ to noticing Odin practically ogling her at his spot beside her.   A few more pages and most of her sandwich later, she finally looked up just in time to catch Odin blush and glance away.

Ava nearly choked on her latest bite of sandwich, feeling her own face heat up too.  She swallowed hard, eyes skittering back to one of the pages. She cleared her throat and pointed decisively at one of the doodles.  "I really like this one." she proclaimed.

Odin blinked, looking down at the drawing in question.  A realistically shaded drawing of a bunny was pinned under her finger.  He chuckled, eyes flicking up towards her face, "Y-Yeah?" She nodded eagerly.  "Y-You like ra-ra-rabbits?"

"Yeah..." she answered, "I mean they're--cute!"

"W-We get a lot of them, o-o-out by my house."

Ava's eyes widened, "Really?"

Odin nodded, relaxing at the table with his chin in his hand, "Every once in a wh-whi--while, a couple will v-venture into the y-y--... ya-yard.  I-I've gotten to f-feed a c-co-couple, but most of the time they just r-r-run back off i-into the woods."

Ava shifted towards him, eyes alight with glee, "Aw!  I want to feed a rabbit!"

"M-Maybe, someday, yo-you can."  As Ava's smile grew almost exponentially, it seemed Odin couldn't exactly contain his residual excitement either.  He smiled along with her until his joy and smirk faded. Ava's soon dropped off after that. Rather than smiling at him, she just sat there looking at Odin questioningly.

He was quiet for a while, brows knit together and eyes fixed more on the table.  When he finally spoke again, he barely glanced at her, "It... I-It's not that b-ba-bad... right?"  He paused, then gestured towards his mouth, "M-My lip?"

Ava squinted a bit in her attempts at keeping it from morphing into a full-on grimace, "...No!"

Odin just nodded.

She felt kind of bad lying.  Though, maybe a half lie was something she could get away with.  It wasn’t like it looked _awful_.  But it was still a fat lip.  It made Odin’s resting face look like a lopsided, discoloured pout.  And the more she looked at it, the more she caught herself wondering just how in the world roughhousing with his sisters would result in a fat lip and nothing else.  She figured maybe he should have more bruises or a limp, or just complain about sore muscles before walking in looking like someone socked him in the mouth!

Then again, Ava had only seen a little of Odin’s family.  He had all but flung her out the door to his truck when she had barely been introduced to two of his sisters.  Maybe they were just…  _like_ that.  And anyway, it wasn’t like Ava was going to ruin her chances at a new friendship by crushing Odin’s hopes that he didn’t look like someone handed his ass to him.

She could settle at a nice in-between.  "It looks badass, anyways," Ava finally shrugged, "Like you got in a fight."   _Tactful.  Open-ended.  Not saying he looks like he got his butt kicked, necessarily!  This is perfect._ Ava looked over at him expectantly, hoping maybe he would come back with some clever quip.  He only chuckled weakly. Ava's shoulders slumped and she picked up her sandwich again. "It really does look okay, though."

"G-Good."  Ava smiled at him.  Odin returned the favour by changing the subject again.  "D-Did you... g-get a chance to check out that th-th-thing I sent you?"

"Oh!" Ava nodded, laughing a little, "Yeah, I did!"  She took a moment to remember the time she had taken the night before to pull up the document Odin had been so kind to link her to.  She had, in all honesty, totally forgotten about it until she was laying in bed. But she had to say, getting up in the middle of the night to sneak onto the computer in her room to check out Odin's little gift was well worth it.  A whole document of analysis on colour symbolism in  _The Great Gatsby_ , all written in run-on sentences, informal slang, typos galore--anything and everything to suggest that Odin was the most sleep-deprived and delirious man in the world.

Odin laughed with her, shaking his head, "I-It's a m-me-mess."

At least he was self-aware.  "It was funny," Ava nodded, "Like--in a good way, though!"

"I-It was r-rea-really late wh-when I m-mm-ma--... made that."

"I don't doubt it."

"B-B-But I mean..." Odin cleared his throat, "I-It's still an-an-an-analysis.

Ava nodded in sympathetic agreement and piped up, "I actually did a couple more sentences for some of the slides.  I'm not all done, but I did some." She looked up at Odin more earnestly, “I can finish it over the weekend, if you want?”

Odin waved her off, “I d-don’t want you to do a-a-all the work.”

“It’s fine!” Ava rushed to assure, “I don’t… have much else going on.  This weekend.”

Odin glanced around.  “Well… m-may--maybe we can w-wo-wo-wo-work on it t-together.”

“Oh!  I mean, only if you’re not doing anything else, I just--”

He cut her off with a little nod.  “W-We could g-g-go to the pa-park. I-If that’s o-o-okay?”

Ava blinked and nodded helplessly.  “Yeah! That’d be good!”

“Th-That way you’re n-not too f-f-far from home, i-if that’s a-an issue.”

“And you don’t have to give me a ride, either.”

“A-A-Are you sure?” Odin tilted his head.

Ava nodded quickly, “I can walk to the park!  Or bike.” She felt like enough of a burden as it was--anything to keep Odin from going too out of his way for her, she would be more than happy to do.

He just shrugged, “I-If you i-in--insist.”

“I do!” Ava exclaimed.  And before she could do any form of rational thinking against the matter, she smashed her little fist on the lunch table, as if to punctuate her declaration with finality.

Odin blinked down at it in surprise.  He didn’t really flinch as much as he did acknowledge the small feat of ferocity with slight amusement.  Feeling her face beginning to flush at an alarming rate, Ava just looked anywhere but at him, and focused instead on finishing what remained of her sandwich and flipping through more pages of Odin’s old sketchbook.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry about the wait on this one, your patience and support in the meantime are SO greatly appreciated, you have NO idea!!! <3


End file.
